IOWA CITY, Iowa — Dominic Alvis remembers when he circled this date on the calendar. Read more

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa --- There's double vision in triplicate on the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University marching bands.

When the Panther and Cyclone marching bands take turns entertaining a sellout crowd Saturday night at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames during the schools' football game, there will be three sets of twins with one member in each band.

"We have a little bit of a rivalry going on," said Preston Vorthmann, a freshman who plays the clarinet in the UNI band.

It's the first time he and his brother, Patrick, who plays baritone for ISU, have been apart since leaving home in Treynor, a small southwestern Iowa town. But on Saturday, the two will face off on the field during the opening game of the season.

Until then, they are practicing some friendly, collegiate trashing of each other's school.

"(ISU) will be louder because they have a bigger band, but we have better tone," Vorthmann said. His brother commented on a Facebook video of an indoor UNI rehearsal, saying, "Real marching bands march outside."

The two went their separate ways after high school because Preston Vorthmann wanted to study teaching at UNI. His brother wanted to study engineering at ISU.

Preston said there's no separation anxiety between him and his brother yet.

"Marching band makes you so busy, you don't have time to miss home," he said. "The cool thing about being a twin was always having someone to play with. That's obviously different now, but I'll always have someone there that understands me. I can talk to him about anything."

UNI Junior Molly Fewell of Swisher plays sousaphone for the Panther band. Her identical twin, Tess, plays the mellophone, a type of french horn, as a Cyclone.

Fewell said that growing up, their parents made an effort to place them in separate classes so they'd form their own identities. They're continuing that tradition in their collegiate lives.

"My parents decided one was going to wear Iowa State colors and the other UNI," she said about Saturday's game.

Identical twins Ethan Harvey, a 22-year-old English education major at UNI, and his brother, Matthew, are seasoned in the art of twin foolery.

They make a point to play a trick on both bands each time the rival game approaches. They don each other's band uniforms, each hanging out with the opposing band until someone notices.

They used to play the same trick at school on their mother, who was a calculus teacher in the West Liberty School District. Harvey said he made it through half of a class before his mother realized it was him.

"Growing up, we were at each other's throats," he said. "It wasn't until high school that we started learning how to mess with it and have fun being twins."

The game starts at 7 p.m.

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